Amazing Tales from the Archives, 2016

Behind the Silver Screen
Bryony Dixon, senior curator of silent film for the British Film Institute, returns to present rarely seen short nonfiction films and cine-magazine items about the British film industry in the 1920s (plus a special American visitor), offering a peek at the artifice and arduousness behind the silver screen.

Universal’s Restoration Initiative
Last year, Universal Studios launched a project to restore a slate of silent films with an announcement at SFSFF 2015 and, on Saturday night, the festival hosts the world premiere of the newly restored The Last Warning, director Paul Leni’s last film. Janice Simpson, director of content governance and preservation, and Emily Wensel, director of content mastering at Universal Studios, discuss plans to dust off more of the studio’s catalog of silents.

Restoring Napoleon
Currently overseeing a six-and-a-half-hour restoration of Abel Gance’s Napoleon for the Cinémathèque Française, filmmaker and restoration expert Georges Mourier charts the fascinating discovery of unseen footage and documents key to the director’s epic vision, which included a four-hour “Opera” version for selected screenings and a nine-hour “Apollo” version intended for wider release as episodes.